Pietro

Krystin and Pietro

Some of this will be review from Krystin's but I will try to go into some of the specific globalization concerns a little more.

Basically Pietro is a University student in Firenze (Florence, Italy) who studies at St Thomas (In St Paul, MN) during the summer. He is a Political Science major and works in editing. His family seems to be middle to upper middle class (though there are rumors of more). He has one older brother (I think) who is married to a Serbian Woman and their marriage took place in Serbia.

Some of the stuff Krystin has covered: His Political background is mixed, he believes firmly in change to get things done, seems to lean left, has noticeable frustration with the right, but has voted for several parties, rarely if ever the popular choice. He seems to be more interested in regional, or even local city matters over state level. Currently isn't a big fan of either the Prime Minister of Italy, or President Bush and recognizes many of the positive and negatives of Italy joining the European Union (EU).

When I asked about immigrant populations he quickly prefaced the talk by saying that many of the reasons for people being singled out in Italy was due to frustration with the economy in Italy (past few years) and that like in all countries (US included) the prejudice usually comes from not having a proper understanding of the culture of the people, or the sociopolitical/economic situation in the first place. As a whole he seems to have concluded that people should be better educated on the subject.

The 4 groups he identified as being particularly noticed were: Chinese, Albanians (and other former Yugoslavians), Filipinos and North Africans. The Albanians and the North Africans are generally perceived as being involved with crime, but he took particular care to note that not only do these groups tend to make up the majority of "non wanted" jobs, but also work the factories which drive the industry of the country. He also noted that these two groups tend to mingle with Italians more and it is in many ways that interaction that causes the friction between the groups. Albanians and North Africans are often pushed into jobs where they have to serve the public and thus are the more noticeable minorities.

One more note, is that the political party on the right, tends to blame most of the problems of crime on these two populations, but the captains of industry who own the corporations and often vote Right, tend to be the same people employing and introducing them to the country.

The other group he spoke about were the Chinese, who like Krystin said, tend to not associate with Italians as much. Pietro described them as taking up entire neighborhoods and suburbs where they live and work amongst themselves. He notes that many do not learn Italian and do not teach their kids it. The problems associated with the Chinese are related to the influx of cheap "rip off" products that compete with Italian goods. These products are sold at all the market corner stands etc, and many feel this is slowly killing the economy.

In terms of all of this, it does not seem that these groups will come to dominate, despite concerns and prejudices. The market is so Western leaning that other Europeans and Americans have a far easier time establishing businesses or at least a cultural dominance.

(Krystin covered a lot of what he said about Americans coming in to Italian towns)

One interesting note he made, is that if you ask an Italian "What is American Culture?" they wont recognize a lot of the things they know and use because they associate it too closely to themselves. They may "know" McDonald's and Nike are American but to them it is not American Culture.

He also paid a nice tribute to the "American Dream" which he says helped many Italians both in the US and in Italy thrive, but notes that economic stratification has become very hard to break. Not a lot of social mobility between classes.

Lastly I think it is interesting that he and his family/friends vacation in Eastern Europe. They see it kind of the way people see Tijuana, Mexico in the US, as their playground, where anything goes and everything is cheap.

But in spite of that I think it has helped him personally to realize what he has and what others have to deal with. In the same way I think his perspective on the US and Americans is somewhat more valuable as he has often been to the US to see how people live etc. 

******
Note 12/2010


It was really interesting to meet Pietro. Krystin was convinced he was as wealthy as a prince, but I never saw a whole lot of signs of that. When I think about it now though, wealth is displayed fairly differently in the United States than in Western Europe. One of the main factors that I thought showed that he was not as wealthy as she perceived was the amount of space and stuff in his house, but when I think about it now, the amount of space we Americans seem to desire to take up is vastly greater than anywhere else in the world.  His house was a renovated older building. I was unsure of how much of the property they owned, but his family lived fairly modestly. Still the impression I get of Western Europeans is that after the war it was considered fairly impolite to flaunt your wealth or status, so I assume even the wealthy toned it down in most cases. Sure the royal families may show off here or there, but how do the wealthy or even the upper middle class of Europe really live?